Ever felt stuck in a toxic cycle of pursuit and withdrawal with your partner, leaving you feeling unheard, unwanted, or disconnected? This stirring conversation with esteemed sex therapist and licensed marriage & family therapist, Dr Laurie Watson will offer a refreshing perspective and actionable advice to help you navigate these rough patches. We unpack this complex dynamic that many relationships fall prey to, and discuss how it impacts both emotional and sexual connection.
We uncover how this pattern, often present in both romantic and sexual relationships, can lead to feelings of embarrassment, vulnerability, and shame. Our exploration into this cycle illuminates how it can affect women desiring more emotional connection while their partner tends to withdraw, leading to a disconnect that often seeps into their sexual relationship. We also shed light on the triggers that initiate this cycle and the profound impact it has on couples, making it difficult to identify and break.
However, it’s not all doom and gloom. Dr Laurie shares strategies to improve communication and connection, offering a beacon of hope. We look at how understanding our own survival mechanisms can affect our partners and potentially perpetuate the cycle. We also explore how to manage fears of sexual dysfunction and ways to foster flexibility in a sexual relationship. Finally, we emphasize the shared responsibility of both the pursuer and the withdrawer in breaking this cycle and fostering a healthier relationship. Trust us, you won't want to miss this enlightening conversation with Dr Laurie Watson. Let's dive in!
Today's Guest: Dr. Laurie Watson
Laurie Watson, Phd, MA, LMFT, LCMHC, AASECT Certified Sex Therapist & Supervisor in Training, Co-Host of FOREPLAY Radio Couples & Sex Therapy Podcast, LMFT, Author, Director of Awakenings Counseling, Training in EFT - Emotionally Focused Therapy (Externship and Core Skills; Completing Supervision).
She’s the co-host together with global leader in couple's therapy, George Faller, LMFT, of the popular podcast – FOREPLAY RADIO – Couples and Sex Therapy which is ranked in the top 10 sexuality podcasts in Sexuality. Laurie says, "Sex is one of the greatest adventures in a relationship. It makes us feel alive. It connects our minds, bodies and hearts. In fact, sexual and emotional intimacy are intertwined; we need both to be happy. With too little eroticism - our relationship is dull and with too little emotional connection - sex is mechanical. Most of us don’t know how to find this balance. And talking about our sexual needs is so risky. We might cause a conflict; we might be judged; we might not even know what our needs are. Join us, as two expert therapists have a frank, fun and informative conversation to help you keep it hot! "
Links:
Book - Wanting Sex Again (Berkley Imprints)
Blog - Psychology Today
Listen to the first episode with Dr. Laurie Watson Here!
Apple
Spotify
Your Host: Kimberly Beam Holmes, Expert in Self-Improvement and Relationships
Kimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and foll
WE HAVE A NEW WEBSITE!!
Visit www.itstartswithattraction.com to check it out!
Ever felt stuck in a toxic cycle of pursuit and withdrawal with your partner, leaving you feeling unheard, unwanted, or disconnected? This stirring conversation with esteemed sex therapist and licensed marriage & family therapist, Dr Laurie Watson will offer a refreshing perspective and actionable advice to help you navigate these rough patches. We unpack this complex dynamic that many relationships fall prey to, and discuss how it impacts both emotional and sexual connection.
We uncover how this pattern, often present in both romantic and sexual relationships, can lead to feelings of embarrassment, vulnerability, and shame. Our exploration into this cycle illuminates how it can affect women desiring more emotional connection while their partner tends to withdraw, leading to a disconnect that often seeps into their sexual relationship. We also shed light on the triggers that initiate this cycle and the profound impact it has on couples, making it difficult to identify and break.
However, it’s not all doom and gloom. Dr Laurie shares strategies to improve communication and connection, offering a beacon of hope. We look at how understanding our own survival mechanisms can affect our partners and potentially perpetuate the cycle. We also explore how to manage fears of sexual dysfunction and ways to foster flexibility in a sexual relationship. Finally, we emphasize the shared responsibility of both the pursuer and the withdrawer in breaking this cycle and fostering a healthier relationship. Trust us, you won't want to miss this enlightening conversation with Dr Laurie Watson. Let's dive in!
Today's Guest: Dr. Laurie Watson
Laurie Watson, Phd, MA, LMFT, LCMHC, AASECT Certified Sex Therapist & Supervisor in Training, Co-Host of FOREPLAY Radio Couples & Sex Therapy Podcast, LMFT, Author, Director of Awakenings Counseling, Training in EFT - Emotionally Focused Therapy (Externship and Core Skills; Completing Supervision).
She’s the co-host together with global leader in couple's therapy, George Faller, LMFT, of the popular podcast – FOREPLAY RADIO – Couples and Sex Therapy which is ranked in the top 10 sexuality podcasts in Sexuality. Laurie says, "Sex is one of the greatest adventures in a relationship. It makes us feel alive. It connects our minds, bodies and hearts. In fact, sexual and emotional intimacy are intertwined; we need both to be happy. With too little eroticism - our relationship is dull and with too little emotional connection - sex is mechanical. Most of us don’t know how to find this balance. And talking about our sexual needs is so risky. We might cause a conflict; we might be judged; we might not even know what our needs are. Join us, as two expert therapists have a frank, fun and informative conversation to help you keep it hot! "
Links:
Book - Wanting Sex Again (Berkley Imprints)
Blog - Psychology Today
Listen to the first episode with Dr. Laurie Watson Here!
Apple
Spotify
Your Host: Kimberly Beam Holmes, Expert in Self-Improvement and Relationships
Kimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and foll
WE HAVE A NEW WEBSITE!!
Visit www.itstartswithattraction.com to check it out!
This week on. It Starts With Attraction.
Speaker 2:Today I'm speaking with Dr Laurie Watson. This is actually the second time that I've had Dr Watson on my podcast. She was actually in the first three episodes of it Starts With Attraction. She was episode number three and her episode continues to be one of the top episodes of all time for the podcast, so I am thrilled to have her back.
Speaker 2:Dr Laurie Watson is a certified sex therapist. She also has her doctorate in sexology. She is a certified EFT emotionally focused therapy therapist and has worked with several different addictions and is certified in addiction therapy and addiction specialist as well. She has over 30 years of experience working with couples and individuals about love and sex, and one of the things that she is noted as saying and y'all know I love this she said I've never seen a couple who I didn't feel hope about their healing and happiness. I absolutely love that because, as you all know, I strongly believe there is always hope, and in today's episode we're talking about having hope in the sex and emotion cycle in a marriage. We go deep into the work that Dr Laurie has done into the pursuer and withdrawer, which is very difficult to say fast. I had to say that multiple times to get it right on the podcast Over and withdrawer cycle. That happens in many relationships, and so she talks about what that looks like sexually as well as emotionally. Let's dive into today's episode.
Speaker 1:There's a process to falling in love, and it starts with attraction. Join Kimberly Beame Holmes and her special guest as they discuss how to become the most attractive you can be physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. Or as we refer to it, working on your pies will teach you how to have better relationships and become more attractive to others and maybe, more importantly, to yourself. It starts with attraction and it starts now.
Speaker 2:Dr Laurie Watson, I'm so excited for you to be back on the show. One of you were in the first 10 episodes that I did on. It starts with attraction and your episode is still in the top five. That's great. The entire show so clearly the listeners love you. Thank you for coming back.
Speaker 3:Oh, you're so welcome. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:We will link to the show that we did before in the show notes. But for people who haven't listened to that before, what is the line of work that you're in and how did you get into that line of work?
Speaker 3:So I am a certified sex therapist, I'm a licensed marriage family therapist, I have a doctorate in sexology and basically I got into this work. I was teaching, I was training to be a therapist and I taught in premarital counseling and so many of the young couples came back to me with sexual problems. I'm like, wow, this really could be a specialty, because so many couples have this problem. It wasn't until much, much later in my career that I realized it turns out a third of all couples, after they've been together committed for two years, becomes sexless. So that means either they're only having sex like less than 10 times a year or maybe low sex which is less than every other week. So it's a big percentage and I think I kind of understand now why.
Speaker 3:But that was why I decided I got to specialize in sex therapy. This is too important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I want to make sure the listeners heard this. A third, so about 33% of marriages are having sex less than every other week.
Speaker 3:Let me say that again. I think it's actually 20%. I must have exaggerated in my mind because I see so many of them, but it's only 20%. That's still a lot. That's still one out of five.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So what do you think? So you said, now you think you understand why I do I do.
Speaker 3:So that's really what I wanted to talk with you and your listeners today about. Is that, as I've probably processed myself in the last three years and seen so many more couples and done some real work, theoretically is that there's this thing kind of like a pursue withdrawal cycle. So one person, emotionally kind of, wants more connection, closeness, sharing of feelings. Maybe they want more help, time together, date night there's something that they want and it's weird because the more they ask for it, the less their partner seems to come toward them and in fact it seems to push their partner away. So it's kind of like South Pole magnets this person pushes and asks and this person backs up. Of course it goes the other way too. The more they back up, the less time they're available, the less they initiate, the more that other person kind of gets dysregulated and feels like, ooh, something's wrong here, I don't get it. And then they ask what's wrong? We need more time together. You seem to be preoccupied. So either person actually starts this negative cycle but what happens is they kind of end up escalated and they go into that fight or flight mode, which is I'm going to criticize and blame a little bit more or I'm going to withdraw and shut down a little bit more, triggering their partner further, and then they end up in disconnect and we all get into that cycle and we get into it emotionally and we get into it sexually. So maybe one person wants more sex and connection and the other person they used to be really sexual, but now every time they ask it's kind of like ugh, I'm so tired, or really it seems like all you want is sex. They kind of push back, they withdraw from the sexual relationship in some way, or they say, ok, well, can we get it over quick, which is really a way to both have sex but be disengaged sexually all at the same time, and so sexually we can get into that cycle as well. One person seems to always be the pusher and the other one seems to withdraw.
Speaker 3:In heterosexual couples this is often crisscrossed. Oftentimes the woman pushes for more emotional connection. Needs that really to be sexually connected, and her partner seems to be backed up. It's like, well, I got work to do, or I want to play games on my computer tonight. I don't have time really. I want to get to my friends and it's like but I need time with you, we're married, I want to be connected, yada yada.
Speaker 3:And this is not how it started when we were attracted, right when we were attracted, there was all kinds of time for each other and there was all kinds of sex. And everybody says, well, maybe it's just that fate, that connection just kind of fades. I don't think so. I think that it's the negative cycle that tanks us that we really have to learn to deal with and to know what to do so that we can have that connection. Because without emotional connection, without good sexual connection, the relationship will erode. We are going to be disconnected, we can be tempted by others. I mean, there's also kinds of things that leave us in jeopardy in our primary relationship.
Speaker 2:So does the emotional cycle, so the pursuer withdrawal cycle. If someone is in that emotionally in their marriage, is that going to affect the sexual cycle? And then, vice versa. Absolutely, they're interconnected.
Speaker 3:They're interconnected. Both of them have sort of gravitational force on the other one. So, for instance, women we know the research says women need emotional connection to feel desire and to be sexual. But the problem is is maybe she's withdrawing sexually, which dysregulates her male partner emotionally Because he's like all undone, okay, there's not a steady supply. This is not what I signed up for. She seems bored to death, she doesn't want me, I feel rejected. And he starts to protect himself emotionally by pulling back from the relationship. And she's like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, I need you and I need more of this in order to get sexual. And he's like I know, but I need sex in order to feel safe emotionally, to open up to you. After we have sex, that's when I want to talk. And she's like I know, but I really need to talk before we have sex so that I feel connected.
Speaker 3:And it's just really tight knot. You know that they just pull so tight on and it can feel hopeless and impossible. You know we end up fighting, we end up sleeping in separate beds, we end up doing our own thing, but we really don't feel close anymore. And sex is, you know, it's a little flat, if we do it at all. You know it's not like it used to be. That's just. That's just what the fate of marriage.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. How do you evaluate this in couples when they come to you in your practice? What are you asking, what are you looking for to see where it's starting and who's the pursuer and who's the withdrawal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's really easy, you know, because that's exactly what I do in my first session. I mean perfect question. So what I want to do is I just say well, you know kind of what brings you in here. I might already know, because I've got a text from the front desk or something, but I like them to tell me Mm-hmm. And maybe you know, usually the pursuer opens, you know, or the pursuer nudges their withdrawal and says why don't you tell them Mm-hmm?
Speaker 3:But the person who speaks first is usually the pursuer and you know they are sort of what we would consider the complainer. They're the ones who are going to frame the problem, they're the ones who made the phone call, they're the activated partner and as a therapist, you know we can see that person of like wow, you know they're sure complaining in this other person. They seem calm, cool and collected, not escalated at all, you know. But what we don't see is the not doing that triggers their partner. I don't get engaged with you, I don't initiate with you, either sexually or emotionally. I don't do things that leave you feeling abandoned and emptied, or abandoned or what it abandoned, or empty really.
Speaker 3:And then the withdrawal, you know, feels like you just are always pushing me. You want to control me. You want to control my time or you want to control when my body is going to respond to you. You want to control this bedroom thing. No matter what I do, you don't like it. You know I had an orgasm and you're like how could I make it better? You know, and how that reads to a sexual withdrawal. That question of what would make it better next time is like you mean, it wasn't good enough this time. So I just check it out. I listen to who speaks first, I listen to what the complaint is and then I watch the reaction. It's like usually a withdrawal will minimize the problem. It's like, well, it's not that big a deal. Things would be a lot better if they were just happy. You know, if they could just get happy they're just kind of an unhappy person, you know then things would be better.
Speaker 2:Is it the which one affects the other? So they're intertwined the emotional and the sexual cycle, but is there one that tends to affect the other and go that way directionally, or kind of? Where does it start Like? What is the core issue? That was a different question, but what is the core issue that's leading this cycle to begin in the first place? And then, which direction does it typically move?
Speaker 3:So when you, when they're in therapy, it almost always looks like the pursuer starts it, but when they're at home it's usually equally based. So the not doing right, I don't do anything to bug them, it's like right, you don't do anything to do anything. You know, you don't ask about their day, you don't seem to initiate conversation, you don't initiate date nights, you don't initiate making love. If it's, you know, the withdrawal in the sexual cycle it's like, and in in sex it has really that pursue, withdraw dynamic doesn't necessarily have to do with desire, because sometimes high desire people act like sexual withdrawers. It's like well, I don't trust anybody to take care of my sexual needs, so I'm just going to take care of them myself. I'm going to use porn, I'm going to masturbate or I mean more toxically, I'm going to use escorts or prostitutes or have affairs or something that I'm really withdrawing from the primary relationship, you know, and the pursuer is just like frantic, you know, okay, I, how do I get you to engage? And there are women who might have technically less intrinsic desire, who are sexual pursuers, who want sex, who feel connected deeply in their bodies, who feel free in bed and uninhibited and this is a joyful, lovely place and they want more from their partners and they might be married to a sexual withdrawal. And that's a really tough case.
Speaker 3:Is the, the woman who is a emotional pursuer and a sexual pursuer, married to the emotional withdrawal and the sexual withdrawal because he's working against his biology? I mean, there are times, certainly, that the male has low testosterone and and sometimes I check, you know, or I have them checked at a doctor to see, but it's a. It's a more difficult case when the woman is congruent, she's a pursuer in both realms, married to somebody who is congruently withdrawn in both, both realms. And sister, if you're out there, I know it's tough and I am both a sexual pursuer and an emotional pursuer.
Speaker 3:That that has been the dynamic in my marriage. So I know how hard it is, you know and. But it's difficult to if the other way around, if a male is sexual pursuer, emotional pursuer, married to a woman who's emotionally withdrawn and sexually withdrawn, congruent styles are more difficult to resolve the crisscross pattern. They can at least both kind of have some empathy. Oh, you want something from me. It's good that you want something from me, you know, and and the way I feel about wanting from you emotionally is kind of how you feel about me wanting sexually, there's an easier bridge for empathy, so that one is more easily resolved.
Speaker 2:That makes a ton of sense. So is the goal in this, in how you work with with this cycle, to get people out of pursuer withdrawal, or just to understand and be able to communicate better with each other and meet each other's needs?
Speaker 3:That's a very, very good question. So it's, there are goals in different stages of the work and if you're not in therapy, you still can do this work on your own. But the first stage, the goal, is just to de-escalate, to start to realize that, okay, my partner does something that I feel triggered, you know. Like you know, I, I come up to them and I kind of hug them I'm not exactly asking for sex, but yeah, I want sex and I'm kind of warming up with my body next to their body and I feel their body stiffen, you know, if I'm a woman, not in a good way, but just their body tenses, right, and and then I get triggered. I'm like, okay, here we go, right, I'm triggered and I start to feel something and maybe I feel rejected, but really, kind of my top level is I'm angry. Oh man, we're going through this thing again. I feel mad. My body starts to tell me something. You know, it's like my stomach just sinks like, oh gosh, this is just the same old, same old, you know, and I'm, you know, you're pulling away from me. You're like tell me you're too busy. You're going to tell me you have a headache. You don't engage, like we used to flirt. You know I'd say something and it would pop. You know it would hit you and you would be engaged with me sexually. And now it's like this, stiffening this tension. You're kind of shutting down, I know it. That makes me mad. I also feel rejected. My body is sinking and I tell myself something, the emotional response that we have to the trigger. I'm also telling myself something, maybe I tell myself oh man, you know, gosh, I've gained 10 pounds since we got married. You're probably not attracted to me anymore. You know. I tell myself something that might have nothing to do with the reality, but whatever I'm saying escalates me further, you know, because the meaning that I make up about this problem is usually something that escalates my emotional reaction even more.
Speaker 3:And then in the cycle I do something. I do something that makes sense to me. It's usually I'm in a survival mode instinct. I'm either going to it's going to be flight or fight. So I may just drop my arms from around my partner, you know, stop hugging them and kind of stomp off and say forget it. You know, just forget it, you know, and I go away withdrawing. You know, sometimes I do that too, so that I can go lick my wounds and calm down a little bit.
Speaker 3:And withdrawers have a purpose in the reason they pull away. It's usually to calm down and because they don't feel very helpful about resolving things with their partner. But also the fight mode could be anger, like I always hug you, you never hug me and then you just act like you're a stick. You know you don't melt into me. That is wrong with you and we criticize, we blame, we come full on attack. So in the cycle, our protection mode makes sense to us. I'm attacking you to get you to realize that what you do hurts me. But in the withdrawal mode I also have a purpose. I'm going to calm down. Maybe we'll come back to this at some time to talk about it later. I'm withdrawing because I'm hurt. I don't feel like I do it right. I don't turn you on anymore. I'm feeling rejected.
Speaker 3:Pulling away, this makes sense. However, our reactivity, our fight or flight, triggers our partner. So when I fight, they're like whoa, you know, I was just. I mean, you came up behind me, I was startled for having sex. Right, it's defense. It's like they won't see the larger pattern that this happens frequently. They're going to defend themselves because they don't like being attacked. You know eventually they may go away. It's like, you know, forget it. You know it's like I don't make you happy. I never have the right response of whatever it is you're looking for and so they're pulling away and our sexual moment is lost. You know that warm, romantic little woo, you know, maybe that'd be great. Or maybe you say something flirty to your partner and it's like flirty or dirty, and either maybe it's a text and you get nothing back. Right, you're vulnerable. You send out this flirty text and nothing happens. I mean, what does that feel like inside? What do you think that feels like inside when nothing?
Speaker 2:comes back Absolutely Embarrassing, vulnerable, maybe shame, like I feel ashamed that I did it. I'm not good enough, or I mean there's a ton of storylines that I'm sure people can fill in Right. That's not good.
Speaker 3:Exactly, exactly. And so you know the reaction of our partner triggers us further, like, well, I'm never going to do that again. You know, I'm done with texting, I'm done with sexting. Or I'm never going to flirt because they just rolled their eyes at me. You know, it's like I'm inappropriate for having sex. They're my spouse, they're supposed to respond yeah.
Speaker 3:So stage one is to begin to see I do this or I get triggered by something. I feel all these things tell myself something, and then I protect myself, and then my protection triggers my partner in a particular way. And then we got to get curious about because we don't really know what's happening on their side of the fence. But they're triggered, they're feeling something, telling themselves something, protecting themselves in a way with fight or flight. That exactly triggers us further and it becomes a looping negative cycle where we are not having sexual intimacy, we are not having emotional connection, and usually both of these cycles are impacting the other cycle, and so we start to grow more and more distant, more and more disconnected, and many people feel hopeless at that point like gosh, no matter what I do, we just keep getting into these fights. Yeah, yeah, it's a dual cycle problem. What do you do after you do?
Speaker 2:stage one.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 3:So after we get people to start, what we want is can they name their cycle? Can they see? Okay, this happens a lot, this thing that we do, and it turns out that our reactivity is very similar from moment to moment. So every fight begins to look the same, instead of every fight looking random, like in the beginning. Couples, just like I'm finding about this. I'm finding about that. We had an argument here and argument there.
Speaker 3:But when they see that it's a pattern, humans can solve patterns. It's very hard to solve 16 one-off issues, but once we begin to see, oh yeah, I'm married to a withdraw and when he doesn't engage with me, I start to feel abandoned. That makes me anxious. I start to come at him, which just triggers him to shut down further. It's a pattern and we can solve patterns more easily. So once they see it, we try to get people to name it.
Speaker 3:So you don't have to be in therapy although therapy helps a lot with learning this pattern and it helps to have a neutral person there who sees the good intention in your survival instinct. Right, you're pushing because you want to get something across. You're angry because it's so important to you for your partner to hear this complaint so that life will get better? Yeah, or yeah, you're withdrawing because you're just trying to take a little bit of space, trying to get some distance so that you can think again, because when they get escalated, your blood pressure comes up to your ears and you're literally deaf to what they're saying. You can't react and if they ask you, all you're going to say is I don't know. I don't know, I don't know what you want. We always know the withdrawal who says I don't know. You ask them what do you think? I don't know, but do you have any opinion? I don't know, I really don't know, because they're so anxious about saying the wrong thing that it's just better to not say anything meaningful at all. So they say I don't know. It gives them a little bit of space, but of course that triggers their partner who's dying for engagement. Yeah, so we want them to name it, we want them to notice Most of the time, and we're not 100% anything all the time and we're a little bit different in different relationships.
Speaker 3:So that's true, but most of the time we act in our most intimate relationship in congruent ways or we act the same in conflict, maybe without stress. We're loving, we're connected, we're more secure. But under stress, in conflict, we tend to resort to these old ways of survival that maybe serve just well. In childhood, maybe I came from an alcoholic home and it was so chaotic that I just learned tune it out, go to your bedroom. When there's chaos, it's just best to put your headphones in and not listen, because otherwise I will not be able to sleep. So I learned withdrawal as a tactic to survive. Or maybe it was like no in my family. My parents were so busy I had to raise a ruckus to get any attention, to get anybody to pay attention to me, because otherwise my needs would have never been met. So these are old patterns that live in our bodies. And so then, stage two deep breath. We have to learn to conquer old survival patterns.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm going to ask this now because I want to see where this fits in, and I don't, you know. I mean, I am eager to know what these, the next of the stages, are. But how does inhibition play into this? So, thinking about especially like a sexual withdrawal, yeah. So what if it's and I'm I'm sure you could tell us way more about inhibition, but you know whether it's because they had a religious upbringing and so certain things may feel, you know, naughty to them, even though now that they're married or different things like that. How does that play into this cycle? And is that still, if it's because of inhibition or things like that? Does it follow the same pattern of how you work through it?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So inhibition, I think kind of what you're driving. It is probably more of an intracyclic block, right? It's something inside me that is causing me to not be able to be fully present in my eroticism. So the cycle gets into play because I don't necessarily know how to talk about that. You know, it's like I don't say to my partner you know, I'm so attracted to you, I love being married to you, I love it when I have orgasms with you and we're merged and one. And I love intercourse, I love all of it. But there's this part of me that, like, when you ask me for oral sex, I just like freeze. You know, I kind of grew up.
Speaker 3:My mom was really a clean freak and a hygiene freak and you know all I can. What I say to myself is you know, his penis is dirty, that's where he comes from. And I know, honey, that you really need this and you've asked me for it a bunch and I know it's hurtful to you that I don't easily give this to you and maybe there's a way we can find through it, you know, because I want to please you in bed. I know this is so essential to you. But like, this is what happens to me. When you ask me, like, I'm like, oh my God, I panic. Here it is again. I don't know what I'm going to do. This feels dirty. Everything in me is screaming don't do this. This is like dirty, it's bad. I get a little bit afraid that I'm going to choke, that I mean, I go through this panic experience and I'm not saying you shouldn't ask. I'm not saying you shouldn't want this. I'm not saying no, I'm just wanting you to know what happens inside me so that maybe we can attack this together. So, right within inhibition, if we could be vulnerable and talk frankly about the feelings inside together, we could manage that. But what happens is okay.
Speaker 3:Then their partner asks for oral sex. It's like no, I can't do that. I don't do that. I'm sorry, I don't do that. Like they don't talk about the inner aspect of their inhibition, they say no, or they're like I can't believe you would want that. That's so gross.
Speaker 3:Or you know any number of things that makes the person asking feel ashamed or bad or too much. You know what you're asking for is too much, because I'm not sort of able to be as in touch with what the inhibition is, where it comes from, what I'm actually feeling. So what happens is my personal inhibition, and sometimes this happens with trauma. Right, I've been traumatized and so I can't enter sex freely. I shut down. Right in the moment I'm like suddenly exiting, you know, emotionally and mentally You're like, okay, you go ahead and come, because I'm gone, you know I can't stay present, but I can't necessarily tie that and link that to my trauma and I don't know how to heal my trauma and it's impacting, you know our relationship.
Speaker 3:And sometimes then they go to a therapist who says, well, let's just not have sex for a year while we heal the trauma. And it's like, are you kidding me? We've already been shut down for 15 years because of the trauma and now you want me to wait another year. You're supposed to help us, not hurt us, right, you know? And how do we do this? And, of course, what we? Just for the record, we do want to help people with trauma, with sexual trauma, and we want to give them safe ways to cope with whatever anxiety is going to come up. Yeah, but they can't avoid the anxiety that's gonna come up, because then we can't heal the trauma, like if they're avoiding, we're training their body to stay away from something, so they never get to the other side, where there's good things.
Speaker 2:Makes total sense with this same premise apply to Sexual dysfunctions on either side. So women who have a lot of pain with intercourse, and maybe that's why they withdraw, or men who have Premature ejaculation or erectile dysfunction, and maybe that's why they withdraw.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes. So Every sexual dysfunction in my world, the way I think about it, there might be a physiological cause, but how the couple handles it together is really whether or not they're having sexual engagement. So let's just say a guy, you know he's a little bit older, he has to take blood pressure medicine and his wife knows, you know, she's a nurse she knows he's gonna struggle with erections and so she stays really playful and you know, he starts to lose his erections and she's like honey don't worry, I can handle it, baby, and I'm just gonna give you a little more attention. I think you should take some Viagra. We'll just experiment and see what happens, because you know it's really important that you control your blood pressure and We'll figure it out. And she never shames him, she's not uptight when it happens, she doesn't tell herself craziness like maybe he's not attracted to me because his penis doesn't get hard anymore. She stays securely attached sexually and she helps, you know. And he says, you know he's vulnerable. He says, you know, I liked it when my dick got hard just so easily. And this is really Disappointing to me and I feel embarrassed and I feel ashamed and I don't feel like a man anymore. I know I gotta take the meds, you know, but it's like I just this is really hard for me and, frankly, I find myself not initiating with you because I feel like I'm not gonna be able to get it up, you know. So they start to have open communication, they keep having open communication, and so sexual dysfunction is not a problem.
Speaker 3:But in a couple that is not securely attached sexually, it's like he's getting, you know, had two or three incidences of ED. He gets afraid, he gets anxious, which of course increases the risk of ED. Right, because we know it's an anxiety-fueled issue. Even if there's a physiological cause, you get anxious about it. It's like don't think about pink elephants. Right, as soon as we say that, everybody's thinking about pink elephants. It's like don't think about your penis losing its erection. Oh great, thanks a lot. That was a really sexy thought that just came into my head.
Speaker 3:Now I'm gonna lose my erection for sure, or premature ejaculation, right, don't come, don't come, don't come. If I tell myself don't come five times in a row, guess what's gonna happen. Mm-hmm, I'm gonna come. Because the ejaculation comes from two reasons. One is erotic stimulation how sexy I'm feeling, and it gets so sexy that I climax. It also comes from anxiety.
Speaker 3:Now for putting in erotic Stimulation and anxious stimulation, I'm gonna probably come too quickly. You know couples who can talk about that. It's like you know they can manage it. It's like you know what. Maybe we should just slow it down, you know, and I'm gonna tease you a little bit and then I'm gonna stop touching you and I just want you to relax and start to feel your body, your whole body, instead of being so focused on your penis. You know, I mean, that's essentially the natural way to solve premature ejaculation. You know, and and when she does that and she's like. But you know what? Maybe what we should do sometimes is let's just go for broke. Why could you climax really fast inside me and then please me for a while and it'll be okay. Maybe you get hard again and we'll go again, so that that flexibility is secure sexual attachment. But in insecure sexual attachment and maybe insecure emotional attachment attachment, they get triggered.
Speaker 3:He came too fast. I've told them five times to go to the doctor and figure this out. He hasn't done it. He doesn't care about me. I just feel sick and I'm left high and dry. Frankly, because I am a woman who climaxes with sexual intercourse. Most women don't only 15% of women out there climax with sexual intercourse. About a hundred percent of them climax with enough clitoral stimulation, you know. But but maybe he feels ashamed, humiliated because he climaxed too fast. So he's just taking it to the showers like I'm gonna just go get cleaned up. He's embarrassed rather than saying, oops, you were so sexy, I climax. What can I do for you now, honey? You know he doesn't do that because he's pulling back, he's withdrawing from that humiliation. She's like what just happened. We are not connected, we are not feeling good with each other. Sex used to be our strong suit and now suddenly you know you're coming too fast and you just leave me and Now I'm angry. Right, yeah, so that's the cycle same cycle right.
Speaker 2:So it goes back to we tell ourselves a story around what happened when we feel rejected and all of that. So, yeah, so all of these things, the emotional issues in the relationship, sexual or, you know, physical, physiological issues, right, inhibitions, okay, so de-escalate is the first stage, and you said the second one was to conquer old survival techniques.
Speaker 3:No old survival reactions. So, yeah, right, my reaction is to fight. But I know that when I push and I criticize and I get angry, my partner gets dysregulated. They can't hear my words anymore. All they hear is this energy. They feel this energy and for them they grew up in that household where it was, you know, energy meant bad things were going to happen. Angry energy was a danger trigger for them, and it's shark music, you know it's coming for them.
Speaker 3:So I got to learn to modulate my tone, to take time, to take conversations in tiny little bits Instead of thinking I can solve this one and this one and this one all at once. Right, none of us can solve more than one problem at once. And how many people argue with each other? And and then, while I got you and while I got your attention, you know you do it over here too, and this bothers me as well about our relationship, and this one too and suddenly we're flooding the plane. Our partner is flooded, they're feeling no good at all. We're just like not getting the responsiveness that we want. So we keep going and going, and going, and you know we've maybe waited because we don't know how to talk about things in easy, simple ways. So it's like we let that anger force the stuff out of us, lay it all on the table and that kind of feels good. You know, I got it out.
Speaker 2:The only problem is is our partner is over there, devastated, right right, so realizing whether you're the one who flees and and withdraws in that moment, or whether you're the one who kind of Fights back. So it's conquering that old survival reaction. And how are we doing that?
Speaker 3:by very, very good question. I mean, I first think, um, seeing how it hits our partner, like really recognizing my survival mechanism, which makes sense to me lands on my partner in ways that trigger them. Out of my love for my partner, out of my desire for them not to feel that bad reaction, I want to change me. So love is a great motivator for change. That's one way, and so you know, I have to learn. Okay, First of all, I become aware of the separate pieces of my emotional reaction. I'm feeling this. My stomach feels bad, I'm starting to feel nauseous, I'm telling myself that my partner is going to go away from me and I'm, I'm allowing those thoughts to to create more and more escalation. I can feel my heart rate. Okay, I'm going to take a breath, I'm going to regulate for a minute. Maybe I need to tell my partner hey, I'm getting dysregulated. I can feel my, I can feel the cycle coming for us. It's in me, it's in my body, I own it. I put it out there out loud. I don't want to do this to you. You know maybe what I need to do can. Can we just take a quick break? I'm going to run up and down the stairs six times just to get my adrenaline out of me. You know, let's pick up after dinner, after the kids are in bed. I'll come down by then. I'm not leaving this fight, I just, you know, I just need a minute and I don't want to do that thing to you, and maybe our partner is able to say sure, that's great. I so appreciate you noticing this in you, which reinforces our awareness and the gratitude that our partner is becoming aware, not blaming us further, you know and just say you know, I'm I. I know my tendencies to withdraw, and you know I would probably go work out in the garage tonight just feeling that tension between us, If you hadn't said that. And I'm going to tell you I will come back to you. We'll sit on the porch, let's have some hot tea or a glass of wine. We will work this out, honey.
Speaker 3:And so we mutually start to enforce and reward the control of these survival mechanisms that we recognize our own and, you know, we start to calm down in ways that are more functional. We start to own up to each other. This is what's happening in me and then we can co-regulate because our partner is so grateful for our, you know, lack of reaction, that it's like it starts to feel better. And the beautiful thing about this, when we get a hold of it, is it's a little like riding a bicycle. It is not actually an intellectual exercise.
Speaker 3:When we feel the positive cycle a few times even, like when we feel how good it feels to be vulnerable and tell our partner what's actually happening inside us and reveal our inner heart, and our partner is responsive, it's like, oh, this is a better way, Our body knows it's a better way, Our body remembers it's a better way and our brain starts to force that channel. It's like our brain says there's a better way. You know the defensiveness, the anger, the withdrawal, those ways. We know where that goes. But this new way of vulnerability and getting curious, what's happening in you? Like we can see our partner escalate and it's like we can stay calm with them, Like, oh, you're really getting mad, I can see, you know. I know when you get mad, you know you feel hurt. How are you feeling hurt right now? We can pull it out of them. We can stay with them in their anger and not and take turns. You know it's like I don't have to be defensive in this moment. I know my partner is in distress and I want to care about them.
Speaker 3:And same thing with sexual distress, right, it's like you know, I just I asked and I noticed that you kind of sighed. And you know, I know in the past I get all rejected and I, you know, go away from you and I'm just wondering what's happening in you. You know what. Can you tell me what the sigh was about? Can you tell me what you're feeling right now? Maybe it's like, oh, I'm tired. It's like, okay, we use reflection, You're tired, Makes sense. It's been a long day for you. The kids were beasties today. I get that.
Speaker 3:And what else is going on with you? Oh, you know, my mother called and you know they've got all this stuff. They're clouded, they're clouded up, they're not free to enter the sexual channel with us. But as we become curious and not get rejected, not, or maybe we feel rejected but we don't stay there we come to our partner, we initiate more conversation, more curiosity about what's happening in them. You know, then the person kind of dumps it all out and they're like you know, I'm so grateful that you cared enough about me to not do our typical cycle and I feel actually better, having told you all this stuff. You know, maybe it's time to be frisky. Let's go take a bath, let's go see what happens, you know. So as we deescalate, we manage our reactivity and our partner helps us manage reactivity, because they are grateful, they reward it, they notice when we're doing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know absolutely Gosh, doesn't it sound so beautiful? Don't you wish every marriage and every relationship could have that kind of level of communication and vulnerability with each other? Wouldn't that be just beautiful?
Speaker 3:It would be so beautiful and I really think it's possible. Yeah, I mean, that's the goal. That is the goal. I agree. Sexual connection and emotional connection is possible.
Speaker 3:That you know, great sex is actually connected sex. It's people who feel secure with each other. It isn't people who feel enmeshed like that Enmeshment, yeah, does kind of smother sex. You know, it's like I'm trying to please you all the time. I'm not really bringing my full self to you and I'm just doing whatever it is to stay away from conflict. That more peaceful look at relationship is not security. It's actually fake. And if we're fake with each other trying to avoid conflict, we're not going to bring the full self to the sexual relationship. But great sex is born in secure attachment where I can now express to you fantasies that I have, things that I think about. That might be a little controversial. I can bring up exciting ideas. I can tell you about my inner erotic world, you know, because our bodies are going to age, we're all not going to be as hot as we were. And how do we stay sexually engaged? It's really in sharing our eroticism with each other, which lasts much longer than our hot little body does.
Speaker 2:Very, very true. What is the step after conquering the old survival reactions?
Speaker 3:Okay. So after that, and we've been vulnerable with each other, I mean that right, there is kind of the last step, but within that, what we feel, when our body is like familiar with the positive cycle, actually problem solving becomes very easy Because we're not triggering each other. It's like, okay, you wanted sex and honey, I want you. However, I'm just too tired for sex tonight, you know. Let's do it in the morning, you know. Or let's sneak away this weekend. You know, moms and tans, you could watch the kids. We could go to a hotel, you know. I promise I'll rest, I'll go to the hotel early and take a nap, you know, but I do want to be with you, you know. So problem solving is so simple.
Speaker 2:So it's in the problem solving. So, as you're conquering your old survival reactions, it's this, it's this encompassing dynamic where it's okay. Let me not react the way I did because I'm reacting out of a story I'm telling myself. Let me instead be vulnerable and loving in my response to my partner about how I'm feeling and why I feel that way. But as I'm doing it, it's also making that turn towards them, right, as we would say, and then getting in the cycle of doing that Okay. So here's my next question Whose responsibility is it to start this cycle? Is it going to be the pursuer, because they're the one already pursuing? Is it their kind of baton to take to do this first?
Speaker 3:So that's a very good question and the pursuer seems to have the energy, so it makes sense, right. But the withdrawal actually has to reengage. So the withdrawal has to learn how to become responsive, how to initiate, how to be in touch rather than saying I don't know. They have to become aware that actually when I say I don't know, I am feeling something. I may not have learned how to be very articulate about that, but if I don't know my emotional reaction, then I'm not going to be responsive when my pursuing partner becomes vulnerable. So actually the withdrawal kind of has to reengage first, and I know every pursuer is out like that. Well, good luck with that. You know my partner is never going to reengage.
Speaker 3:So are you saying it's hopeless for me? It's like no, you can also deescalate. You can also say what I will try is not the push. I will try to ask directly hey, you know, for me I really want sex three times a week. That just makes me feel loved, that makes me feel close to you. How does that feel to you? It's like three times a week, oh, my God, no. And you stay with the person. Okay, you know, I'm hearing you say that doesn't work for you, you know, and that really feels like too much. You stay reflective and I know you know you've got a lot on your plate. You validate, you know there are ways to communicate that even if you're a pursuer, rather than letting it trigger you, you can help turn the cycle. I mean, you know both people actually kind of have to do it about the same time. But in therapy with our couples we know that if the withdrawal cannot be responsive, the pursuer is just going to be left again. And if they're left again, they're going to escalate again and the cycle is going to start all over again. I mean, think about this the sexual pursuer who says, okay, well, I'm just not going to initiate anymore. When you want it, you let me know, I'm done, I'm not going to initiate anymore. Does that ever work? It doesn't work because there's implicit pressure and if the sexual withdrawal has not learned to be in touch with the reasons they have inhibitions, if they haven't gotten in touch with what's blocking them and they're not willing to respond.
Speaker 3:I mean, solving the sexual attachment problems is not about more sex, believe it or not. It's about responsiveness. You don't have to have sex when you don't want it, but you do want to honor your partner's vulnerability in their initiation. If they're initiating with you and they're coming onto you and you don't want sex, it's okay, that's fine. But you have to honor that they are vulnerable in their initiation and say hey, baby, I am so glad that you really direct us in this way in our relationship because it keeps our romance alive. I really appreciate how vulnerable it is for you to keep asking and really be the one who draws our attention here. I'm kind of dead meat tonight but I want to just tell you don't give up on me, keep coming. I appreciate that you have drive, that you make it fun, that you want me to have pleasure. It's sexual responsiveness.
Speaker 3:It's not necessarily more sex. Maybe your partner wants you to do something in bed or wants to do something to you in bed that you just are never going to do. You don't want to do it and it feels bad to you. Nobody should have to do anything they don't want to do in bed. But responding to our partner's desires about it, it's like we can still. I know this is kind of everything to you and I'm saying I'm never going to do this. I can't imagine what you must feel. You must feel so frustrated with me and you're not going to get in life what you need.
Speaker 3:I just wonder if we could keep talking about it, because I want you to have a good sex life. I want you to have a sex life that makes you happy. I also want to respect myself in that. For me, this feels wrong and bad. I can't get around that. No amount of therapy, nothing. It really just doesn't feel like who I am. But I love you and I want you to feel good. Is there something else we could do? Could we maybe do that in fantasy? You can tell me about what it's like. Let's find solutions. When people are sexually secure, they find ways around blocks that are hard blocks.
Speaker 2:Once again, I love everything that we've talked about and so insightful. One of the things I appreciate about you, lori, is how you verbalize what the communication can look like, because it makes it seem more achievable when you help people understand. Oh, I really could say it that way and it would really help our relationship. We can see how this would be such a healthy thing for us Of everything we've talked about. If people are listening to this and thinking this is where we are stuck, what would you encourage them to be the first step that they should take?
Speaker 3:I'd love to invite them to my podcast, foreplay, because we do role plays all the time. My co-host, george Valer, and I do this. We set up a problem, we talk about the dynamics of the emotional and the sexual cycle and then we role play often the bad way to do it, the better way to do it Now that people start to have patterns that are imprinting on their brain oh, I could have said it that way and this is a better way to say it and it probably wouldn't have taken my partner. We try to help people install the alternate pattern of the ways to talk about sex. We also talk about sexy, spicy things like how to have simultaneous orgasms and just all kinds of craziness. We talk about everything. We also talk about it in natural ways. We're colleagues, so we're respectfully of each other, but we have some fun. Please use us as a resource. We have heard that, I think.
Speaker 3:Secondly, if you feel really stuck and you've been a pursuer and you're burned out and you're like I am not going to pursue anymore, are you kidding me? I'm not going to put myself out there. It's been a while that you are burned out. This is a danger signal. You need to get therapy. You need to get help Therapists understand how to help you through that burned out place and how to help your partner become more responsive to you, because you deserve response. If you're a withdrawer, you deserve to not be criticized and you deserve help in being seen in places that you feel pain, because many times withdrawers they pull away and then no one gets to see what's happening inside them. They are not seen in their painful places. We want to help you with that.
Speaker 2:I love that. Foreplay Radio is your podcast. We will link to that in the show notes as well as the link to your practice, which is in North Carolina. But y'all also do some virtual events and some women's events. I got the email today.
Speaker 3:We're having a women's retreat in Asheville in November. That is all about kind of you know it's talk, we're just talking, but we're going to talk about all kinds of things sexually, so that people can overcome their own inhibitions, think about their cycle, think about how they can do things differently.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's a couple's retreat too.
Speaker 3:On that email.
Speaker 2:So that's in September.
Speaker 3:In September, we lead people through a guided retreat where they talk about this all.
Speaker 2:Fantastic, so we'll include the link to your website in there as well. Thank you, dr Lori Watson. It's been again such a pleasure to talk to you, love what you're doing, I love how you're helping couples and I know that the listeners are going to love this conversation as well. Thank you for your time, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3:It was lovely Pleasure.
Speaker 2:Here are my key takeaways from today's episode. We really dived deep into the emotional part of attraction In today's episode as we were talking about how we can learn to de-escalate ourselves and respond in a healthier way to our spouse, especially when it comes to some difficult to talk about situations such as sex. I know that in my own marriage it has been difficult at times to have conversations around sex because sex is so vulnerable. I remember when I was going through my marriage and family therapy training over a decade ago now and my supervisor at the time was an emotionally focused therapist. That was her specialty and I remember her. We were talking about one of my clients, a couple clients that I was working with, and I remember her saying to me that the most vulnerable and intimate that a couple can be is when they look each other in the eye in the middle of orgasm. I want you to think, if you are married, if you have ever looked at your spouse in the eye in the middle of orgasming when now I had only been married like two years when I was going through that program and she had told me that and I just remember thinking this overwhelming sense of that is vulnerable, like that is crazy vulnerable. And, yeah, there would need to be a lot of trust, a lot of security as Dr Watson said a lot of sexual security and connection sexual connection and feeling sexually secure in order for not just that to happen but for conversations, even about sex, to happen. If it's hard to even just look at our spouse in the middle of sex, how much harder is it sometimes to even just talk about it? And that is what I loved about today's episode, because it really put the clarity around how we as individuals in the relationship can begin to see our part in how to make the conversation better and how to do the conversation differently.
Speaker 2:So, as a recap, we talked about how typically what happens is there is one person in the marriage who she calls a pursuer, so someone who's wanting something to happen, who has more energy coming into the marriage about this thing, and there's one person who tends to be a withdrawal, the person who tends to remove themselves or withdraw, as the name says. They don't want conflict. They may be, feel like they're never good enough, and so they tend to withdraw. And so, when wanting to change the cycle, the first thing to do is to understand how the cycle is happening. So identify, when one of you makes a bid for attention, what is what typically happens, what leads you or the other person to feel rejected? And this is what we typically tend to write our stories around. When we feel rejected at the bottom line, hurt, angry, there's a story we fill around the edges to help us understand why that happened, and that story is not always true. Depending on what we say about ourselves in that story, I'm not good enough. They just don't love me. It's because they must be doing X, y or Z right.
Speaker 2:That is when we then tend to react with fight or flight, with a defensive mechanism, because we're trying to protect ourselves through either fighting about it or through fleeing from the situation. And that also tends to trigger our spouse, which can lead us into this cycle. So the first stage, as she said, is to deescalate. The second one is to conquer the old survival reactions. So deescalate by realizing what your triggers are and choosing to react differently, and then conquer the old survival reactions through calming down and then vulnerably turning towards your spouse and explaining to them in a loving way what it is you're thinking, what it is you're feeling and learning to be vulnerable, and then changing the cycle into one where, instead of fighting and ignoring and withdrawing and pursuing and pushing, where all of that is one cycle. It is now a cycle of listening, being curious, understanding, reflecting back the emotions the other person has, seeking to understand why they feel that way, what you can do differently to make it better. And it becomes a different cycle where you're attentive to each other, you're curious about each other, your understanding of each other, and you're vulnerable with each other.
Speaker 2:I encourage you to go and listen to Four Play Radio, to Dr Lori's podcast, because the way that they talk about things, about how you can word things and also the tone that you can use when talking to your spouse about some of these more difficult situations, is such a key in the conversation going well. So the key takeaway is look at your own marriage and see is this a cycle that's happening and are there patterns At the bottom line? I believe that the pursuer-withdraw relationship stems from one or both people not feeling accepted by the other, and that's a premise that we talk about at Marriage Helper quite a bit. So look at if this is a cycle that's happening and then try and find the pattern that's there and see at the bottom line, what you can do to help your spouse feel accepted, even when they're doing something that you wish they were doing differently. And remember that that's the beginning of the cycle beginning to start. Typically, when we look at any of these relationship cycles in psychology, we know that when one person begins to change their part of the cycle, then the cycle slowly begins to change for the better, but it does take time.
Speaker 2:So take heart. There is always hope and there's great resources out there to help. Dr Lori's resource is a great one. If you're having marriage issues, relationship issues, then our Marriage Helper research and resources are great resources to help you there as well. If you found benefit from this episode, share it with a friend. You probably know many other people who are struggling with marriage issues and maybe even struggling with their sex life in their marriage. This is a great episode to share with them. The best thing that you can do is leave a review, so please do that wherever you listen to podcasts. Until next week, stay strong.